The past couple of mornings, I noticed a familiar white-noise-like hiss under the audio of the WBZ Morning News. Pre-iHeart, that hiss was a tell-tale sign the station was transmitting in HD on AM 1030. Now, supposedly, that's been turned off under iHeart, and the only other reason for the hiss would be if 'BZ were blowing out less than its full 50-KW flame, due to say, tower and/or transmitter maintenance, and I'm hearing thermal noise in my receiver. Anyone have any info?
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WBZ: Low output power or HD on AM?
- Thread starter nowradioguy
- Start date
As of right now, Sunday at 3:30 PM, WBZ 1030 is not broadcasting in HD.
I still have HD radios at home. I've removed my makeshift HD radio from my car (it was an HD portable playing through an FM transponder) because all the subchannels I used to like to listen to in this area have been blown away.
I still have HD radios at home. I've removed my makeshift HD radio from my car (it was an HD portable playing through an FM transponder) because all the subchannels I used to like to listen to in this area have been blown away.
Do they still have use of their old backup tower at 10,000 watts on Soldiers Field Rd. in Brighton since their studios moved out of there with the acquisition by iHeart in Medford? If so, I wonder if they were using that for some reason?
Also, I don't know how far down you were, but WBZ doesn't come in all that well on Cape Cod because their directional pattern doesn't beam their full power that way.
Yes once I was on Cape Cod--Osterville--and wanted to hear Donna Halper on WBZ as a guest.Weaker signal.
It gets a *tad* better the further down cape you go. WBZ's signal is really bad out on Nantucket.
Ya, it is all WBZ's fault.... not that car radio manufacturers have cheapened the AM sections so they are 1964 transistor radio quality, or all the consumer electronic equipment that creates noise, or street lights or .....
And remember that those maps are estimated, and the usual primary coverage area (relatively noise-free) will be just inside the innermost red curve.
Man made noise is increasing by the year. The ITU recently stated that a signal of 15 mV/m was needed in urbanized areas to overcome the noise levels now existing.
Remember that there is a zone in the fringe of the groundwave coverage area, where skywave starts coming down at night, causing cancellation. This cancellation zone is not the station's fault.
Did you or a neighbor install a computer, smart-home device, LED bulbs, a dimmer, a smart speaker device or any other one of the known noise generators recently?
David,
No, I've installed none of these, but new neighbors did move in across the street recently, and it wouldn't surprise me if they've got some of this noise-generating techie gear (e.g., baby monitors, LED bulbs, smart-a$$ home devices). They keep to themselves so it's not likely to come up in normal outdoor neighborly conversation. I'll have to bide my time to find out.
Thanks for the tip!
But at least we now know it's not HD from 1030 AM.
K
kenglish
Guest
Is WBZ operating with Modulation Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL)?
That can cause noticeable noise pumping if you have interference or co-channel stations, as the s/n varies at the receive location.
That can cause noticeable noise pumping if you have interference or co-channel stations, as the s/n varies at the receive location.
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